Watch: I Spent 30 Years Abroad and Now I'm Retiring in a Village - Shankar's Inspiring Journey

3:50 Say I'm more of a foreigner than here that would actually be technically correct because I spent more of my time abroad than in India got it so how was the life abroad I mean I think you know especially Middle East it would have been interesting times in the last 30 years anything that you can share in terms of your journey there and why the thought of moving back like after that years maybe we come to that but maybe before that like let's get some insights or some tidbits on the insights of your life in abroad

4:26 Especially I went there in 1990 September 8th to be accurate some sequence of events I wanted to do my MBA but could not do I didn't get admission I was not very studious that way but then my father was in a construction field and his owners had base of businesses in Dubai so it was a coincidence that they told me to to come to Dubai to start some manufacturing some work over there so without very specific agenda I went to Dubai and it was at a wrong timing Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait the first Gulf War and I landed over there the people over there were telling that their scud missiles of Sadam mid would fall in Dubai and they were leaving Dubai so those are the circumstances I had gone there but having gone there I just thought let me try things out and in a very prestigious firm called alut which is know very well known in the Middle East I got my first job over there that's how I started my career out of

5:26 The 30 years I did 10 years on my I worked for the first company it was a continuous stretch then 10 years I was on my own so I know business very well to run a business and start and another 10 years again being employed the middle 10 years were again very interesting because it was my own business like anybody else you feel you have a lot of time when you're are not employed for somebody but the truth is that you don't have a lot of time you're always thinking you're always moving around and it was the most adventurous time because I was in the area of GPS tracking when it just came in at that time and I didn't plan out when I started my business but immediately the Afghanistan and Iraq war and everything came up so I was just traveling to all these weird places trying to sell my equipments and make some money like anybody else and all that was very very adventurous because I used to go to all places where there is no GSM coverage no network but think of all the places and even take pride in it that Earth is very big but when we travel in

6:27 The pl and we think that all cities are inhibited and populated but anytime you go through any plane you're flying on a plane when you look down you see arid land so there's a lot more place on Earth where you can go settle down do some things yeah and and that excites and fortunately that was my market for satellite communication equipments so that's what I was doing yeah coming to the second part about coming back I think it was a very clear three reasons I was in Singapore when in 2020 when I decided it was during the covid time that things started looking bad not I was I had

7:04 Started the companies in Singapore Malaysia Sri Lanka Indonesia for a company that I was working so I was a director there so in terms of positions and work I was in the peak of my career but then covid came and there was some amount of cost cutting things that had been doing the back of my mind I had always been been very much by heart an Indian so I said I was always telling myself I need to to go to India I need to stay there so that was one primary reason the love for India whatever I whenever I used to come on holiday enjoy whatever I see it could be a panipuri on the roadside or something else that really fascinated me that's one second my father this is a major factor my mother passed away 20 years back and almost 17 years my father has been staying with me wherever I have been whether it's Dubai Singapore some places so I felt a very strong obligation that we should make make them also comfortable see when your parents are staying with you abroad they're very dependent on you anywhere you go if you

8:07 Go then you they come along with you they can't go around without that that is a big handicap and even a a feeling that you are not making them comfortable the other hind side of you coming them staying here and you coming and visiting is again not fair because they have taken care of you for a very long time and it's not fair just to leave them in an ageold place or something like that and then say that's the compromise that you can do so I thought why don't I do something different both my wife and myself were very much agreement of this we said we will move and make him feel comfortable at that time also he was 84 he's now 88 wow and I felt at 84 I felt that okay during his last few years he's also very social person he lives to go to marriages relatives marriages socialize with people and I was restricting him from doing all those things so the second major Factor was this take him back to India and make him feel comfortable maybe a few more years but then he enjoys life as he wants it yeah

9:09 So that's a message also I want to give to all the people abroad why do you expect your parents always to come and stay with you and do things make some compromises take a break from your job come back to India stay with them even if it is for 6 months or one year yeah changing jobs or do something and live happily with them they have sacrifice for you to take you abroad why didn't you do the rest the reverse yeah so that's second Point third is I have two beautiful daughters they are they have already finished their education Elder one has done in National Institute of Design Ahmedabad and younger one studied in University of Nottingham Nottingham and both settled they also have chosen to come back to India to work so they have they're based in Bangalore and they've taken up a house and they're working from there so I just thought before they get settled that's a very prime time that you can spend with them yeah they have their family and their things to take care so why don't I come back here

10:10 And I get more opportunities to be with them before they have their own families and things like that where it will then be a different life these three brought me back no thanks a lot for sharing the details there and kudos to you to think about your fathers and you know spending the time where he was has grown up in the past and then you know having that memories and so on so kudos to that and it's very interesting to hear that your daughters are open to the idea especially when someone was grown up abroad for so many years that they want to be back in India to give it a shot right I think to work here and so on so that's fantastic so let's talk about some of the planning like how did you choose where you want to move to I know you kind of mentioned like you were born and you know grown up in places so how did you select like where you want to move back to in India to be

11:04 Truthful it's all in our mind wherever in India you are you it's a very nice people there are a lot of people you have a lot of comfort with language food habits all if you are here yeah now for me because I was from various places any place could do well but then again the sequence of events it was as simple as I had brought a property very close to kumbakonam it's a senior living Community I had not so much plans for it even a single bedroom house that was there and I had plans that after retirement that means after 60 plus one month in an year I would come and just spend here that was my original planning in my 50s when I bought the place but then the sequence of events which took place I I retired early at the age of 54 I even wouldn't call it retirement because I thought it's an intermediate phase for 2 three years that I would come back here then go back to the job I just chose now when I came back it was covid so I didn't want to go to Chennai where my other house is I knew that the

12:05 Stakes were high over there so I thought of staying coming to this Village back of my mind one more factor which was there is there was a lot of news at that time about Farmers committing suicide and having issues and somewhere that had stuck in my mind that we should do something for society u in in some way or the other when I was in Singapore I went to classes on drone flying drone getting licenses for that thinking that I could go around spraying pesticides or whatever is required for farmers and teaching them something different which then becomes something for me to do and maybe even a business so somewhere the very vague level these thoughts had all come into my mind but a a series of incidents in 2020 including the idea to come back covid everything brought me back so it was not very planned but now when I look back I think that just a catalyst for me to do things I would have anyhow done it but it just started off at that time yeah so now

13:06 Let's talk about how is the life in India for the last four years how are you keeping yourself busy especially I know you want to take a short break and knowing you as a person you are not someone like who sit idle like I think you want to do something so what are you doing and how is the life how are you enjoying it for the last four years I would would seriously say there is a lot in life see let me start with what holds us back yeah maybe we are in the peak of our career we are earning a lot of money and then nobody

13:40 Would be normally foolish to leave that job and come especially if your children are not settled or there is more demands for you on on assets the houses that you want to buy loans which are there and other but if you have fulfilled those basic requirements and it is purely money for the sake of money that you're staying there I think you should think of a switch because you need to play off between having money and enjoying life when is money enough that's the key question money is never enough I remember when my college was over three of our friends sat down and we wrote down on a paper what all we need in our life yeah to buy and we left out car and we left out house and then still made our list with fridge and TV and others and then we thought okay if we get a salary of 6,000 rupees at that time it was a very good job for 6,000 for a fresh engineer then we saw eight years we would fulfill all these requirements it mathematics but we had done that mathematics and felt oh great

14:40 If you sp if we save out of the 6,000 from 300 rupees a month in eight years we can buy all these basic needs yeah now to buy good luck my first job was in the gulf and it was more than 15,000 yeah that day itself but I learned my lesson that never enough because the very next month I knew that my 15,000 was over we started upgrading our lifestyle to meet what we were getting yeah and that could continuously happen yeah whatever money you had okay you would say instead of going for a local trip you would say let's go to Japan let's go to swizerland and you would spend more if you had more Yeah but whether that really gives you happiness or not becomes another totally different question not dependent on money yeah so one of the quotes which I say today is that I aspired to buy a Ben's car in my career a brand new one e E-class which had just come out and all those things and I know what happiness I felt when I got it and I got the key in my

15:40 Hand today when I see a village student and I'm doing something very small for him and he's jumping with happiness because he got a free cracker or a te or a cap and if there was some meter to measure that happiness that I would that I'm receiving because of what he's getting against to the purchase of the Ben car I would say these are far higher so finally you boil down to the fact that happiness is something within you these are all again quotes and lines but when you start experiencing it you feel that it's something that that you need to review at some time in your life when your health is good between commas yeah when I coming to other aspects of it I'll tell you when I do farming and everything I'm panting it's not very easy easy to do those things so if you thought that you would do all those things or other aspirations at the age of 70 or 60 or 70 don't think you can do it and you have lost the bus already so these are the nice stories

16:42 That I share with people and I believe in it very truly yeah I think just to add to what you said right I mean I think you know people might not have time money or health right I think you know there are three different things and you just need to balance it out I think there is no end to what you want in the money I think you know it's always like upgrading the life but somewhere you have to make that conscious decision of what's the purpose of the happiness for you in the Life so yeah definitely I think very valid point so so how was the life in India like I think you kind of kind of give some insights there but just curious in terms of Youth had a plan of like taking a sabatical like you know maybe two three years and then maybe plan to go back but still like you are still living in India has things changed like how was the life and any insights on that yeah again due to again the chain of

17:31 Events I'm now in a place which is a typical Village in the village one of the developer has made 220 flats and called it a senior living where we have 220 Family staying with a common it's a senior living so they have a common kitchen they have the temples within the compound and I'm also there as one of the members in fact for a long time my father was the senior most person in the compound and my wife was the junior most so that's the range of age range that you have yeah so many of the women were wondering what I was doing in between all this instead of not finding a job now this place also is very unique that even though I say it's near konam it's about 10 to 12 kilometers from there it's in a village the joke goes that the biggest Supermarket here Hypermarket here when I had gone there to ask him for custard powder he said I don't have custard powder I have kuura powder so basically to say that he he in his own world not

18:34 Knowing the difference between kuura powder and custard powder yeah it's that of I don't get swiy or zato deliveries yeah some of the Amazon delivers luckily most of the ciers which come from anywhere they stop in kumbakonam and ask me to come and collect it from there okay so I'm still change so one of the questions again people ask is how do you adapt from Sing Singapore yes the most developed most costly place even today last five years it's the costliest place of living in the world not New York not not Tokyo but Singapore is and from that level we're truly I don't want to boast about it but we had a big house given by the company and we stayed very well and then from there from the three bedroom directly jump to a single bedroom over here so I think it's again on all in the mind where you want to stay and how it is people are very nice in villages that's one something I will underline and give there nonam I could give my key to anybody and even leave the door open there's not much

19:36 Theft they have more needs they ideally should be not not the way they are because they have more needs they have more poverty and everything but they are they are real human beings so that is something again very nice to see in villages and to adapt for a foreigner to adapt here I think may be easier than adapting in a city oh really I I believe that because when I go there everybody tells me don't trust him don't give him an advance he will not come back and and they give me stories and it has happened with me also during one of my visits when I gave him a washing machine for repair the guy asked for some Advance then he took the washing machine also and went and all that he put it on top of a cycle can you imagine an washing machine on top of a cycle tied it up and took it for and I didn't know much at that time my father was laughing after he heard the whole story he didn't he was not there at that time he said your money is also

20:37 Gone Wasing is also gone but the truth is that there are very nice people all around in India yes and they come back there's a system in place compared to a foreign place they don't even give you a receipt for what they take so it's all on a level of trust that is beautiful to see you just need to adapt to believe in that trust cycle yeah okay then everything works so it is chaos no doubt when you move from there to here yeah right from driving to everything else okay and I I'm a big low of driving because all these places also when I go I usually take a rental car at the airport drive it around drop it to the airport and come back yeah very India driving is with difficulty yes because it's not just cars you're talking about everything living on the road yeah and that takes a lot of strain it's not enjoyable let me put it that way yeah but you stop on that same driving on the road side you don't need to even get down you just show your hand and the guy

21:40 Brings a gage of sugar cane juice to you yeah in your feat you drink it you pay him I stayed in places Nobody Does that you to get down fore place you to get down you have to park he takes it somewhere else there's a lot of process in place when you are in a structure environment in a foreign country yeah whereas India for all those things are super super means really you can't give any other words for it yeah even a general house help or something it is not defined to just one work I'm not meaning in the extent in the the sense of exploiting them but they go out of the way to do things thinking it's part of their job which you start enjoying and it's very nice to see that yeah so that is the beauty about India I love that about India for anything and everything I wouldn't leave this and go yeah and I think I did the right thing that way to come back to India makes sense so I think you kind of provided some insight so is there anything that

22:41 You can expand a little bit right I think you know especially for someone who lived abroad for 30 years had a certain lifestyle and moving to a village that's a big change very very big change like you know people mention about like hey you don't miss much from West because there are like this quick deliveries you know you can get lot of stuff to your house but in villages as you already kind of given an indication hey you have to go back or there might not be some of these things that are not available how did you adapt is it just your personality that made you adapt or you know after covid you had any thoughts about hey let's move to a big city or just curious on that because it's a big change and what was your thought process behind it see truly

23:25 The word that it's a village it's a it's a smaller place has helped me actually a lot to adapt if the same thing after 30 years if I had gone to the city right from the traffic jams the dust in the environment the water being hard water and not being very comfortable lot of these things would have shaken me up to wonder whether should I go back wasn't my life there better and things like that now when we are in foreign also a lot of difficulties everybody goes through yeah but they just take it up as if it's different like I'm sure many people from my age would have never washed a vessel or dried the clothes during our younger days but the minute you are in a foreign place you contribute to the house by doing all these type of things also now that you don't feel is a is something that you shouldn't be doing or or you it becomes Parton Parcel of yours yeah even simple I've been ironing my own clothes

24:26 For 30 years now I don't do it because for 10 Rupees somebody is ready to do it yeah so which lifestyle is better yeah if you want to look at it that way so money coming back to India with money has its huge Advantage you can really live very well you can enjoy life and it has its own power of dictating your lifestyle yeah having said that it is also on your mindset if you start finding fault with everything small you're going on a train you find a cockroach you find some s of lack of cleanliness and things like that that's how it is how you accept it and move on is what guides you to what how happy you can be if you start becoming the whole train journey if you become very conscious that I saw in the early morning I saw a running and I still can't find it then you have lost the beauty of looking out of the window with lush green paty fields and things like that and the journey is over yeah can you you get my

25:28 My point yes so it's 100% your perception of how you look at things by the way I'm planning to go to Kuma on January where 400 million people are going to come wow okay so it again my I'm not a very religious person in that sense but just the fact that why are 400 million people going to a place enough for me to go there I'm trying to combine it with going and seeing the Republic Day Parade our childhood during our school days we have seen it on television why don't I go and see it so things like that which you can fulfill a lot of your aspirations of what you have lived all your life I mean somebody said this but 50% of your life you live 50% of your life you try to live the life you lived Yeah by going back to the same places eating the same food getting the feel of things then you need to leave if if that is true and it's it's true for a lot of people then you need to plan that much of time for that also I think I'm

26:30 In the pH yeah two weeks before I was in the navaratri in Kolkata it was an unbelievable experience Dura Puja has never been like this for me I have seen it in abstract but the amount of work that goes into each pandal in Kolkata and the thing was an eye opener for me and to all the foreign viewers who may be seeing it I said forget about going to Turkey Istanbul and seeing the sopia Palace or something come to Kolkata and see what's going on there it's unbelievable that way that how much of work has gone into it it's difficult to explain but if you just anybody can YouTube durap Puja in pandal in they will see videos of things like of creativity they work as a big team of 50 people 100 people for one year just to show an idol and a concept in a pandal for one week nine days and the 10th day they're destroying everything yeah kept on a museum as a work of art

27:31 They're destroying everything as a as a part of a religious aspect then after that starting all over again almost immediately for the next year yeah so there are thousands of things like that in small nature that can be seen and enjoyed now if you are a person who enjoys these things then what are you doing abroad what are you doing elsewhere not seeing these things I was taken to Jordan to a place called Jes which is where the Romans had settled we traveled some 3 hours went there there was nothing but just columns and Stones over there but I'm very sure the Western media and things like that have been able to design that to make that as a natural attraction yeah whereas just 3 kilometers from here we have a huge nandi shivas bull it's a huge one and apparently I haven't seen something like that when you stand in front of that it's it's very small nobody comes to see it nobody knows about it and many

28:34 Miracles like that yeah I could go on and on I'll just restrict it to come back to the subject but there are plenty of things like that which I feel is beautiful about India you have to look for it and you'll see it definitely the package will come there will be crowd there will be people of different nature there will be some Crooks also in between that but which other place doesn't have that yeah every place in the world when I went to Egypt the guy wouldn't take money from me in a restaurant because he said that nehu came to inaugurate his luxur Dam the dam that they made there and he was obliged to India so he wouldn't take money from me after eating so there are good people like that also who are there but there are other people also who cheated me and I lost a bag and other things who which happens in commonplace places so India is no different yeah you have a lot of people will go out of the way to help you and there are a lot of people who are who

29:36 Who allowed to cheat you also so if you leave that part you can't brand any country or a place like that it's all fine I don't think there's any place that's you know ideal right I mean there are pros and cons just depends on what is the most important thing and live with some of the other nuances that that are part of parcel of that so now let's I think I'm curious about this retirement community that you talked about right I think there are 220 Flats I think this is a common I think some question that I have heard also just curious on that ecosystem like how does you know people get involved like you said you have a common kitchen and how is that manage so anything that you can share about this community community I think that would be very helpful it's just a set of like any

30:22 Other ordinary blocks it's eight seven plus one admin block so eight blocks each block having certain amount of flats it's just like that it's compounded they have two temples one for Shiva and one for Vishnu the two temples they have religious programs what's beautiful about it is all the people who have retired come here generally because there's nothing else going on here you can't do work from home also from here the net is not very great so you come here then depending because there many of them happens to be brahmans and people who believe in spirituality they joined together they go to the temple sit there they do their scripture reading and things like that there is a very Lively social programs also that go on yesterday we had a mule singing and all the retired people one of the person who is 85 came up to the stage and he sang and he sang extremely melodiously so all these type of activities is also going but mind you these are all people who have been in

31:23 Very very good positions yeah some has been the Commando of border security force in a very top range at one time he was killing insurgents running Commando operations and things like that he's here there's one person who was group Finance director of prot and gamble yeah so many of them in their their towards the end of their life with the children all settled maybe with even 30 to 40% of the children being abroad their children being abroad because I think our generation is the only generation where we have our foot on both abroad and here yeah I think with the Next Generation it may not be the problem so they are all people who have seen life they have been in good position their life and there are people who are down also some of them where their husband has passed away and they get a pension of only 1,000 rupees a month that low and some who get almost 1.5 lakhs a month of pension who had been in Delhi Development Authority

32:23 Director and things like that and retired so we have all the type of people here I additionally say that we have like the Mahabharat we have all the characters also here if I start a WhatsApp group there are somebody who is telling me no who are you to tell me this and there is somebody who just is praising me so that's how my group of operates and if I start something also all types of characters views come in okay so that's our community here now I have and my wife I would definitely add my wife because she's also very deeply involved she starts her day by teaching yoga to them so every day from 7 to 8 she teaches yoga in the common Hall she has custom made it to suit the senior living without much of regress exercise or even a shasana or anything like that and she she is dedicated like that I just move around talking to these people they tell me stories about their children some of them even complain that

33:25 Their children have dumbed them here and gone and haven't come back to India for 8 to 10 years all types of stories you find yeah and then there are many one who are very affectionate but usually the scary question that I get is they all we'll all have to accept that they are in the last leg of life okay but sometimes I get the question from their children and others abroad that shall I come my father is not well shall I come now I being the youngest person are targeted to this question for a second opinion and it's very difficult for me to say anything also yeah but I I I know in my past because I've been in administrative positions that for a manager not to take a decision is the worst decision he has to take he has to make a call whether it's right or wrong is a different question so based on the situation I adise them I tell them come sometimes I tell them no it's okay stay back could be a wrong call also but I make those calls and help them I just sit with them and talk to them yeah my one of my biggest achievement is to sit with them in the beginning ages and

34:27 Teach them how to use a smartphone okay yeah I conduct classes and just show them WhatsApp how they can message to their children yeah they don't know to type and many of them don't know to type I teach them how to send voice messages yeah so things like that and I I little take pride that I'm very patient to sit with them yeah maybe not my father but with somebody else's par I'm very good yeah so I do that and they're all very happy because of all that so odd enough I get requests like this that my phone got stuck I have a message which has come in for upgrade what shall I do things like that so that's small small things like that which make a difference yeah I take them let me share a screen and show something in these regards for sure yeah are you able to see the screen yes so if I say I've categorizes under various libraries so I say walk in 2020 I just took them there's a river C right behind Okay my

35:29 House and it's usually dry like this during Summers yeah so I just said all of you come this is our apartments by the way along with the river so we are that close to the river got it very close and I just took them and said let's go for a walk on the river so all the seniors came they just had there a lot of banan trees some of them thought that they will do a art of proposing and things like that on the river yeah just have fun all these people just came along they just need many times an idea just for somebody to initiate something yes they are then after that on their own and they're they're beautiful similarly when water came mhm CI they let out the water from from Mur and when water comes it's a beautiful phenomenon to see actually water coming in the slide you can see here water is just coming okay started flowing from the other yeah so when it starts filling up then

36:30 Usually they have a ritual to go and leave the the lantern onto the water they do some religious program just thanking mother water the Ki Mata for all this so I just thought for the change I will do a job of making budie for them okay so I just sat there and said I'll make Bud for all of you enjoy on the rivers side and and have a nice fun while they were doing this they didn't in fact recognize me also oh really when they saw me so I just love to do these things which is a little different yeah and they also receive it very well yeah and we just have a nice time enjoying all these things very good I could go on and on with all these ideas but this is how I enjoy my life and become part of them their life also that way the senior community itself while I was saying this with senior we have real fun let me add one more

37:30 Video to the pictures to something maybe I should have covered this earlier but I love to do things so I made during vti I made this vak yeah I just got hold of bamboo and got some acting also done by children for a program end of it we make things so it gives a lot of confidence that you can pick up small things and go all the way and and make it happen there's a huge amount of happiness in doing this Villers everybody get involved yeah similarly similarly during last desara we made a huge raavana yeah these are all senior people who came to assist me yes this is the tummy of the raavana yeah and then filled it up with fully crackers this is my design drawing being an engineer I like to do it with all my designing so it's supposed to be some

38:32 303 feet long wow so that's about 30 m yeah this is just the head portion so if radius is 15 diameter is 15 circumference is 47 so you just take a long bamboo of 47 in turn it around make a circle out of it and youve got this top part ready yeah so things like that which I I just started doing and it started working and slowly we got our structure ready this way so all this is work in progress once yeah then we thought we'll sell some tickets so we said this is going to be Terrace seat premium feet balcony feet for them to view it yeah this lady who is about 80 plus she said she will try her bow and arrow skills okay and and then we went on to complete it erect it lift it you can see

39:34 It all in the photos I'm sliding it through yeah it's a beautiful project to start something like this and then get the whole Community to look forward to it my ra looks a little crude but it works yes and then all of them got dressed I became raana yeah with my wife and my wife F decided to stay with me that's me yeah and then the burning of it it was again the efforts of about two weeks and then just three to four U minutes in which the whole thing Burns yes is something that you feel also emotionally attached to it and then you see gone yeah so that's about this project then presently I'm working I just started this about 3 days back I'm taking the whole Community to Guru Temple so some 40 people are going to

40:37 The temple as I said their children are all very well to do but if you ask them whether they can come back from foreign and take them to a temple it's a big question mark yes so I just thought this is a good initiative so I thought instead of tiati I'll take them to Guru a temple and booking the train tickets booking the bus tickets booking their accommodation and going to happen in February but things like that you can take a initiative anybody can take yeah yeah and you you a younger person you can take that responsibity you can plan it better you execute it and then look at the happiness that you get and others get out of it yeah for sure communities can be beautiful like this yeah and we can do a lot and let me add that my wife also you have to have a click of this also be lucky if a wife is somebody who nags about things and is not happy you do have a problem yeah but if you are able to mold it and she's also seeing it that way and I'm very lucky that way she's also deeply involved now also as I said she's with all the senior people

41:39 Who are their 70s and 80s who know how to make Diwali snacks yeah but are too old now to do it yeah to just carry the vessels and physically do it so she's sitting with that community of about seven or 10 people in another building in the rooftop to sit and do this exercise to just make things now surely they can go to the shop and buy it and finish off with the preparation of sweets and snacks for the valy but life is much more than that and as somebody again once said a ship is safest in sea but we are all in a life in a journey and I

42:15 Think we should experience initially like you asked me I thought with the idea of going back to the farmers I came here and tried with the farmers it's not an easy job the whole place is full of paty Farmers rice Farmers yeah and they don't need drones they don't need any technology it's very simple it's very demanding yeah now when I tell them why don't we grow fruits let have something I even learned app development within in 2020 start for a three months course learned how to make mobile app with the clear intention that whatever they make I will take it to retail and make them help them make money but none of these things worked because they were talking about a product called rice which is not finished in its pH it still has it h it has a processing of half boiled full boiled and all those things and that's the only thing they can make here in my area Okay because if one field is full of water you cannot have another field without water it would come down water would come from the other side okay so if all the farmers decide to do

43:16 Something different and stop pumping water then they can do so all my ideas of helping the farmers died with that one action even though more than the 22 Farmers I know with their mobile number have gone to their house I know very well that project didn't take off got it okay that brought me to actually saying okay let me do some social service around so apart from the fact of interacting with the senior living here yeah I got to move with the Villagers and started to getting know them there were this Senior Living needed about 100 housekeeping and support people also who were coming so slowly we started knowing them as usual their first reaction when you get closer to them is ask for a loan which you give them but then you burn your finger and learn the hardware that many of them don't return it or cannot return it yeah because they've used it for something then relations become bad yeah so I in the very six months I learned this and I thought no more loans to anybody let me draw a policy to help them help themselves yes

44:16 So with that very clear idea we picked up the housekeeping we told them okay even simple things pay 12 rupees in an year and you get life insurance foress Ral Insurance some car hits you government is paying you two lakh yeah under pranant Bea yah you pay 12 month 12 12 rupes in a year and you pay it as deducted from your bank account because even the factor to go and deposit that 12 rupees I I know that these people find it difficult they don't have the time they don't know have the knowledge they don't know to fill up a form yeah so we start with filling up the forms for them going and giving it to the bank making automated the 12 rupees they are paying we also said we you deduct another 330 rupees a year and you get all types of life insurance for two years so if they had a accident then both types of policies would cover and they would get four lakhs that's all a huge amount for them because they don't have a concept of savings yeah

45:16 So anything unted unexpected happens they are all in the large they don't know what to do yeah and the whole family suffers so a lot of those things I saw and thought that let me do these type of things to just fill up forms and do things yeah some work some didn't work we went and they were all into that old zamar system also where they have pawned many of their gold all to very high high value interest so we try to move them to bank once the same thing by just talking to the bank manager and getting it done so a lot of these things we did initially some of them worked some of them they don't change some of them their husband controls things so like that we were doing but during those interactions we came to know all the people basically and they also felt that okay fine somebody educated is Among Us that time after the fos movement I have a small plot of land just 1,500 square ft which I bought along with a flat which is just lying so I

46:17 Thought why don't I cultivate something and started growing the normal lady finger brol tomatoes and things like

46:24 That but then when these Villages children started coming in we noticed that they didn't know the names of any of these vegetables wow why because their mother only takes the drumstick makes sambar with rice and feeds them and that's that's all they are also strained for money for time and life for them has become so narrow now yeah so this was something very disappointing to see they were malish in a different way so this was one aspect of it other one was sbat whatever you might say you say India is very dirty and you can keep talking about it but I think as Indian we should do something about it how much do you expect the government to do yeah so when this word swbat came up it was in my mind that we should do something so I just took up these plots empty plots which were near me which didn't belong to me talked to the owner and I said I'll just put a fence around it and keep it clean so he agreed it's not a big expense to put the fence up even

47:26 Electric is not there in those places so I took water from my pumps and started giving it as a long host pipe to all the other areas but then the my new idea dawned that you could do agriculture in all these places so it started off with just 3,000 square fet then another 3,000 then another 3,000 another 3,000 now I have 12,000 Square ft of land belong to somebody else I don't pay any rent but I grow things in that and our understanding with the owners also very simple take the land whenever you want either when you want to build house or you want to sell it and that's fine for me but it has worked to make the whole place green there is no plastic covers or anything like that and you get huge yields of vegetables and everything for which Mother Earth is so nice you just put a very small seed of a brol or something and you can see Miracles happening there within no time within a few days you see something coming up and then you see it growing and you see it growing and since you put the seed in

48:28 You know the whole thing coming up and there's a huge enjoyment because of that yeah see all these places were arid absolutely and you can see me in this whole field Big Field working on my own I had time so the biggest thing that you have when you retired is time yeah so you take your I have never done gardening before in my life I can't even sit properly on the floor or bend too much so I used a stool where it was required just to sit yeah and then you take your own time to put one one feed and then within no time you see the whole place growing becoming better crops coming up and the whole system changing see from what I started how it looks now yeah you saw that same place being dead now for a normal agriculture this is nothing big but for me it's very big because I never done anything like this in my life yeah for sure okay I tried in this drip irrigation I red sprinkler systems everything but learned from that

49:30 Also that a sprinkler is very good to cover the whole field but you also water the grass which then becomes bad I've grown ground necks I've grown ladies fingers and when they grow you'll be so surprised you get so much from the earth yeah you get much much more than what you want so these are all snaps a a site like this in the morning when you get up and you just see a leaf with drops of water the corners I could give a million dollars and not get a photo like this to see in nature yeah so to come back there are plenty like this in nature itself to see yeah and what we did was we started just giving it out to the poor because I told you they were man lished so my there's my wife picking those items up making them into bundles and then giving it they were all Yi from there this is being so excited that the name of this bottle guard I think or

50:32 Yeah bottle in English I don't know the name but it's taller than her so that's what she so thrilled about yeah and so this is our farmland and we give everything out to the children and others around yeah and they are also very thrilled they have something new to go and tell their parents we make that an incentive for them to come also and U and learn something in the farm so that's one of the things I think that's about the farm that's great that brings us actually to even other areas of initiatives that we started like tailoring we started with about we thought we'll educate the

51:15 People for skill development so we just got four machines sing machines and started the work then we started making small small things we I have to say that we get a lot of support from experienced ladies in the housing senior community who come there also and help yes this lady for example is 80 82 years old wow and this lady gri mamy who who have been doing professional tailoring in Chennai for last 30 years and she thought she will come back here and retire but she got old of her and told her please come help us out and see if you get dedicated her time this time free everything is free so she comes and teaches children pick up very fast within no time they they learn everything about the sing and they get their self-confidence next they want to buy a machine yeah so if the student is very good we give them a machine also get some other resident to sponsor it or or something like that and get them a machine so that's how we started off and

52:15 It's doing very well now that's fantastic today during just for navaratri and others we made as many as these all went for this recent navaratri these are all bags which we which they made for 60 rupees each and we sold some 500 of them yeah which again the cost price is zero because usually these materials and other are donated by somebody so maybe only the zip or something that we buy the allall is like no cost price and we use that as a thing to to to incentivize them to do their own work yes similar to this is tution we started this initiative with children so children come there are residents who come and teach so this is all a lady who comes and teaches they know the local language very well and when we do this we also believe we are doing a lot with their moral values of of simple things like I when I

53:17 Talk to them I say I was on a train and there were some people who are shouting on their mobile phone and disturbing everybody else yeah then I take that subject and tell them that tomorrow you will be also in an environment like this do you want to do that do you want to talk loud and disturb somebody else who is sleeping so shouldn't we move our values to even these small things where we use headphones earphones or we talk softly with small things like that yes which we try to educate them we we tell them about what is sister brotherly affections to anything else where they learn the difference today there are a lot of rape cases and unbelievable things happening in India and that's being highlighted but I think somewhere these type of values that there there can be other relations also other than being lovers and others brotherly relations sisterly relations all these things we try to talk to them and educate them to say that all this you can do yeah so these are the various

54:20 Subjects that we talk about even some type of quiz like this so they have to use reasonable thinking to find and solve it yeah some of them are very professional teachers like these who are saying in the community so she they just have wrapped up themselves that they want to do it voluntarily so then we have projects we just take up projects just to cultivate the ideas of the kids further we say okay fine you tell me what shall we do and we we say let's build it yes so one of them for example is idea of they come up with let me pick up something yeah I teach them how to how the reflection ccope Works reflection refraction inent r refra r things like that

55:27 Then they come up with saying I want to make a solar cooker okay so I take a dish antenna we basically what we do as NIS is we have money enough for these things are too small so we tell them we'll fund you for whatever you require but you have to make it yes and take it further to fully get involved with the project and make it we do that I think Talent just comes out out of nowhere when they do all this there a workshop we did for just painting all the walls the children who just are using the brush for the first time I think their parents also their parents also would never give them a brush and paint now as part of that I'm giving an insentive to all the children to say take an approval from your parents go and paint your whole house I'll give you the paint and your house can be neater so I think this is the way around to make and see if India can be neich this is a workshop we did for painting okay can you pause it for a minute there somebody at the door

56:30 Sure so a you can see their characters here this guy for example chose to paint the gates yeah just painting this girl used to cement and she's filling up the gaps in between in the Floor of our Workshop yeah this girl whom I have never she herself did not know she doing this painting she's doing for the first time yeah and she wants to even paint the roots of the trees that that's what she's doing now yeah so all these people this guy called Tamil sham I appreciate him so much he's so meticulous about his work that if there is a edge that needs to be painted and a little paint has to be put he shows that and he does that so like that each character now I know that he can do these things in his life in future and I'm talking to his parents also to say that that do all these things so this is just a small exercise did saying that we will paint the floor of our Workshop

57:31 Yeah but I believe these are exercises also to make SWAT bat better to make them understand the difference between a dirty place and a and a neat Place yeah so I'm sure that will help them in future to believe that these are things that they can do to make their house better we do various activities one of the activity which we started with the villages was to involve them in making of a swimming pool so actually what happened was that children parents don't send the children to the river because it's dangerous and in summer it really becomes very very hot so what we thought was that we will make a swimming pool and just make the children have fun there so when I'm talking about making a swimming pool it's actually digging up a swimming pool and making it so you can see the photos here we just because we are retired and

58:32 We have a lot of time kids also started helping out and we started making this so it started like this we then took on roles of putting slabs readymade slabs that you get of 6 ft by 1 ft these type of slabs so we paved the walls all with the swimming pool thing then plaster then my wife wife and my nephew who had come here he helped out with some white cement coating and then we painted it like a regular diser paint there the first lot of Village kids who got into the pool you can see the amount of fun that they are having and then the boys were not lagging behind so so these are also attractions for them to come to our CL tution classes and

59:35 Have fun so we make that we try to attract them by saying you come for classes then you get all these privileges so that's how we do it being an engineer I also use some of those Technologies and idea so if you see there's a white pipe here which is a water sprinkler a field sprinkler here so the water from the swimming pool I take it to the sprinkler and spray the complete shed where our tailoring classes and other things goes on so when it sprinkles it wets the complete blue sheet on top aluminium which is extremely hot during summer and also drips down these walls and then when natural air goes through it then it cools up the whole place by about 10 to 15° and it's a big relief during summer so these are the activities we do over here and that's where we are now this is another pet project that I've started on I don't know how well it will work but I found it from the net I found it

1:00:36 From North India we have it it came up because I visited one of the housekeeping the support people housekeeping's house and it extremely hot in summer in their houses are made with asbest sheet or steel blue sheet which they call and inside it's like a furnace that they're staying in so it was very hot and I thought we should do something for it being Engineers being educated people so what I did was what I did was I have started building a house so let me show you the walls of it by the way the children are the one who help me the village children are the one who help me make it literally like the bridge bridge the V children help me put backfill the soil and today it is at a stage where just one

1:01:36 Second where it's like this so this is nothing but a 18 ft by 9 ft room that I'm building Okay now what's special about it is that all around these places they either have what do you call it mud houses yeah or brick houses or these slab houses M so the slabs if you see these slabs are all six feet by 1 ft slabs okay now what I intend to do is remove one slab and make it into an air cooling slab okay so if you ask me how it works is you you know earn pot where we keep water yes it becomes cool so the same way I use these type of pots embed it on the 6t by 1 foot slab and then let water drip on these pipes on these cups so when natural

1:02:37 Air goes through it it just allows cold air to come in you got the idea yeah so I'm working very dedicated on this project there is I have not put the pipes in this case but if you put the pipes like this it will circulate water and keep this cool so if I get this right I would I would have the house cooling itself I would have four of these slabs on four sides of the walls and it would cool the whole place if that works I want to take this further this is me cutting yes these are the slabs which I'm using

1:03:37 To cut the slabs and make the walls okay the whole idea is that if I'm able to revolutionize and make their houses cooler because of natural air going through these pots and then cooling them I'll be very happy with this project and my own Pursuit that I've done something to make them cool make their houses cool yeah such a nice Definitely first of all I don't know such a fantastic work so I'm out of words like to appreciate what you're doing in your circle of influence right I think even taking the the small locality like where you are living and making a difference in their living right I think you know recognizing on the self-confidence that they can do bigger things that they can do things learning new things helping them out and then utilizing the community that you have and able to do that so thank you very much for what you're doing and really really appreciate from the bottom of my heart I have a few more

1:04:38 Points to add on to it I think this is the way forward for anybody and

1:04:43 Everybody see I'm I'm let me be a little different in my in the way I presented I'm doing this let's say even in a selfish motive the selfish motive here is I'm being happy okay I'm I'm enjoying myself I I don't know it have reached a level now that if I go to the Metro cities and if I'm in a different environment I don't know really whether I would be happy there yeah it's it's involved me so much here some of these schemes work some don't for example we bought stows there is a particular type of a Stow R made available in Amazon which uses firewoods and it has a blower from below so it makes it into cooking grid fire to cut the story start I just bought it from there ped up picked up young boys who are just sitting idle without jobs and said go and sell it and on Amazon it's it's retails at 3,000 and here because of wholesale I bought it at 2,000 so I said I'll get 50 of these and

1:05:44 Gave it to them and said you go and sell it and you keep the profit as simple as that some of them said even they don't have the 2,000 to give me and take one I said you sell it and then give me back the money yeah but but my idea was very clear to give them some employment which they would get involved and do so they put a table in front in the main road itself one demo unit of the St to show how it works and they were selling sad part is they were making the money almost a thousand but getting drunk using all the money to get drunk this is something that I can't do anything about yeah and you it even makes you wonder that are you in the right direction because now you are funding they are drinking yeah like yeah okay and sorry to say that but it is preent prevalent all over Tamil Nadu or at least that I know for sure this is alarming this is an issue this is number one number two with farmers and their children Farmers wanted good for their

1:06:45 Children they have studied well but they all moving to the cities yeah they're getting even lesser salaries or lesser Savings in the end of their whole term but they don't want to come back to the Villages so what's going to happen in the next Generation how are we as a government of a society going to look at it everybody needs agriculture so you can't leave that sector out these are difficult things to address and I don't know the solution so thank you very much Shanker sir I think it just I'm getting inspired you know just from this conversation and how each individual can do their own influence right or their own way of doing something in their own communities around and contribute to this SWAT bar or how you can Empower and so on so really really very inspiring so what's the future plans for you I know you initially planned this to be as a sabatical and based on your

1:07:47 Experience of this happiness and what you can change in someone's life what are you thinking right now in terms of what you would love to do in the next few

1:07:58 Years very frankly I don't know I think life is to be taken sometimes by the step so you move forward you see things it could be true that tomorrow I get a little bored by what I'm doing it could be that I find something else better to do things like that that's the truth and I think we should be ready for all those things but right now I'm in the peak of enjoying myself and see doing this for a long time having said this I'm in no way saying that Metro life or foreign life is not great it has its own charms of it and plus points it's it's in a very structured way so anything you do you're doing it in the best manner possible U so that life is also good but I have chosen now to do this and let me keep doing it till I enjoy it so that's how short time short life or short term that I see things fantastic so I I want to switch gears a little bit

1:08:58 And I'm curious about your kids right someone who spent close to 30 years abroad pretty much born grown up and studied there and who moved to Bangalore for work and how has it been for them how are they enjoying it how how is it going for them any any thing that you can share on that

1:09:19 Side let me start with my elder daughter she was born in abroad she was brought up till her 12th abroad she was also dynamic character she was the head girl for her school she played she and my wife played for the UAE cricket team wow okay my wife played up to Raji trophy level and then when they went to Dubai she my wife took her for prelim and selections to the Sha Cricket Stadium but they said that there is no age limit so it ended up with my wife and my daughter both playing for the UAE cricket team when I UA cricket team UA Nationals don't come to the stadium also it's only Indians and pakistanis and British and Scottish people and Bangladeshi who play for the UA cricket team yeah so he played like that they both played and went to various places and played my elder daughter that way and and Dubai is different Dubai is actually a mini India only in all respects because food habits and

1:10:19 Everything are not so much moved out from what we are having here so but it was a big challenge for me when she got admission in National hist of design in Ahmedabad and she was moving out both of us were in our how she would accept and adapt here because we knew the cultures were different the North Indian culture again is different from South Indian ones how she would adapt whether she would just call it off after three months 6 months and say I want to come back I can't study here things like that with your mind I think she did very very well because again she accepted like many of us started seeing seeing value in all those things in what she was doing and nid was also a great platform for that yeah those type of learning so she was all out with her Innovative skills trying to do those things and she came out with great results of all this younger daughter actually studied in University of Nottingham yeah so little

1:11:20 She did psychology and cognitive Neuroscience I would say that she's less me she's also that clean freak and things like that so when she comes to India she can't just drink or have a watermelon juice or Road and sugar can juice or she won't even come near it if she see flies so I thought that would be a challenge for her not wanting to come to India but having said that she also found her first job after all this in India from Singapore when we came back and she's enjoying she works for the S consulate and she enjoys Bangalore life food is great they talk so much about the variety of things that they can do in India so both of them have adapted very well to Indian circumstances having said that because they're young and they have seen the other side of life it is possible that they may take a break and go abroad also yeah okay purely or maybe mainly because of commercial reasons they're both doing very well also with money

1:12:20 Earning well but I think they know the differentiation between the two yeah of life here and there there so to be very honest I won't be surprised if they chose either ways to go either ways but basically both of them are settled to be in both places India and abroad and we as parents have to leave it to them to decide how they want to do it so that's what we are doing for sure sounds like I think they adapted very well and as you said I think it's a flexibility they can make the decisions and you know they still life to enjoy my wife have just joined in now and maybe she would like to say a few words and about what we do hi I'm Mina yeah when we came back I mean little did we think that we'll be involved in so many activities for the villagers and for the community around in fact just finished a session of yoga with the seniors here in our community and not that I'm a

1:13:23 Qualified teacher or anything but just I've learned for a very long time and I thought I'll make the I mean make use of the opportunity to help the people around here who are all like 60 plus and up to 80 80 plus so it's a very moderate session of yoga suiting their needs and they feel happy doing it twice a week because they feel they're much fitter and they are able to with the stretching and everything they're able to walk and and so this is kind of like the feedback that I get which is which makes me happy that's kind of the guru dsha that I really look forward to yeah that's about yoga and I mean having come back I mean one of the main things was parents really and yeah I do get an opportunity to go see my dad every few months and I'm grateful for that and

1:14:26 Yeah as children and like and including being when your mother passed away recently you had opportunity to spend a lot of time here with her yeah with her and yeah I mean that's one of the main reasons and so we are grateful for that and yeah and I mean helping these children teaching them and then we have this the tailoring class and we teach some wire baskets the how to weave wire baskets so this is like one of the baskets that the ladies made so we help them to sell these things and they we taught them how to make it and then now we help them sell it so even the the happiness on their face when we they get the money for their hard work even recently just before Diwali there was this lady who when I gave her the 3,000 rupees she was her there was a spark twinkle in her eyes saying that she

1:15:27 Could buy her son's new clothes for Diwali and after Diwali got over I asked her if you celebrated well and she said yeah because of you we celebrated well I was really touched and I told her that it's not because of us it's like your hard work and that paid off so these are the kind of things that give women satisfaction and it's in giving that we gain lot of Happiness I'm actually facing that now and even when we travel and everything like we're just looking around what gifts we can I mean some small things may not be of Big Value but some small things for these children we look and it looks like for the children when we say for the children it means more for our JM kids than our own kids I mean our own kids are know L but yeah nowadays we are looking out for things for these children and it yeah it gives a lot of

1:16:28 Happiness the every place has its own pluses and minuses but like shanka said earlier being in a village I think the people are better and more genuine so we are better off here than may have been in any other Metro and yeah I do miss Dubai and Singapore and my friends particularly but yeah life goes on and we found our own things to do and which gives us a lot of Happiness yeah yeah so I just wanted to wrap it up is there any topic that we haven't covered or any advice that you want to give to Future aspirants were thinking about moving to India I would I think as cover there will be always subjects that I have not

1:17:16 Covered and I think there are plenty because I'm you you would have known by now I'm a different person who thinks differently and keeps coming up with something like that to keep doing things so let's leave that apart let's it's not about me but having as a message I surely would like to say that for people who are abroad there is a lot which is there in India I stayed for 20 plus 30 27 years in the Middle East there's not a single river in the whole of Middle East can you believe me if I told you not a single River you take Saudi Oman Qatar bahin Kuwait Yemen yeah maybe in Iraq they have the Tigris and eus but nobody goes to Iraq and stays there okay food varieties you go to Iran I have spent many visits in Iran you go to a restaurant you open a menu card they have only eight items written on it just eight that's it that's all I don't know what Iranians feat but they don't eat eat the way they do here you go to any

1:18:16 Nearby small Cafe the menu card has 100 items it maybe when you extrapolate it's it's the basic things only which they are putting it across yeah colors I travel so much take it turkey Bulgaria you name it all the countries every airport I can see only black and dark Blue Jackets H you don't see colors if you looked at it very carefully in all the airports to any other place I don't know what's wrong maybe they wear colorful dress but on top they have black jackets yeah India is colorful to the core I'm not talking about holy and some other festival it's everybody is right from AI to what there there is so much of colors in anything yeah so there is so many things in India which are beautiful and and you should live to experience it and you being an Indian whoever it is there I it'll be difficult sale for me to do it to a foreigner to come back to India and stay

1:19:17 But be you being in Indian having got a taste of it do come to India don't do that one month few two weeks stay just take a break come and stay for one year you will get the mix of everything then make your choice where you want to stay and how you want to enjoy life but if you don't do that and just believe that that's a better place for you I think you'll be doing a mistake or at least you're not being fair to yourself so that's the message I want to give everybody no thanks very much for such a direct clear message about your thoughts again in terms of how one should look at that so really really really thankful Mr Shanker sir for taking your time and sharing your inspiring Journey someone who spent close to 30 years moved to a village and enjoying the life to the fullest right now which is amazing and you know the service that you're doing kudos to you I really appreciate what you're doing and hope it inspires a lot of us to do

1:20:18 Our own job in in different aspects so with that thanks again and really wish you all the best with all the things that you do I think you are not a person who sit idle I think there are a lot of ideas brewing in in you and thanks again for coming on our show today okay last line on that subject about staying in the village because I can't explain what I'm doing here to a lot of people who see me differently I just tell them that I was going on the plane from above somebody pushed me that's why I landed at this place so for me it's as simple as that you have to live somewhere you to be happy and what gives you happiness is what you should do yeah that's it thank you very much thank you thank you thanks a lot